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Topic: small scale income (Read 1058 times)

Howdy ya'll!I am planning on starting some bee hives and I would like all information on how to make some money along with emjoying this hobby. How many hives will I need and if you can please share how much you make.ThanksSteve

Howdy ya'll!I am planning on starting some bee hives and I would like all information on how to make some money along with emjoying this hobby. How many hives will I need and if you can please share how much you make.ThanksSteve

You need to do this hobby because you enjoy it. You can make some money but not much. And if being profitable is a prerequisite you will have to be patient or you will end up disappointed.

Telescoping cover w/ inner cover $19.95Bottom Board $ 9.75Deep Hive Body $ 8.6010 deep frames $ 8.2510 pcs. foundation $ 8.40Hive tool $ 3.50Smoker $22.50Veil $16.50Sub Total $97.45Shipping based on where you livePackage bees $57.00Shipping based on where you liveThen there are the extractors ($105.00) and bottles ($7.65 per 12).Package bees take about a year before they start producing good amounts ofhoney.You can buy a established hive but they aren't cheap either.If your hive produces 30lbs / 14kg you will get which is just a bit less than 3 gallons / 11.3 liters will make about 129 12 oz/ .35 liter bears. If you sellthe bears for $3.00 usd ea. You should make $387 which will perhaps cover yourcosts but not much more than that. You could raise the price on your bears tooffset costs.

These are very rough estimates.

Sincerely,Brendhan

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The status is not quo. The world is a mess and I just need to rule it. Dr. Horrible

My experience is that 10 hives is minumum to keep bees. When you get your knowlegge, you get all stuff needed, it is same if you have 5 or 10 hives. 15 hives is easy to nurse.

For incomes it is very importat to get such pastures that you get maximum income for you inputs.

My average yield has vedeloped this way during 45 years. We have here only 1-1,5 yield months:

*First 3 years nothing

* When I got good queens (canada origin Caucasians) average yield was 80 lbs

* I got good italians after 15 years, yild jumped on average 120 lbs per hive

* With Carniolans it come down to 100 lbs because they swarmed so much

* I returned to Italians and I took special tricks into use, average yild is 160 lbs/hive.

The most important thing for yield are good queens, big hives and splended pastures.

TO get customers and get money meanst that

* honey has better quality than others have or on average: keep bees on such pastures where you get good tasty honey* you may sell it directly to customers

* use only best methods and measure your succes with honey yield.

Of course you may loose your earnings if yoy trye what ever other tell you to do.

First of all: Keep your wife healthy and keep her in good job! Otherwise you have not money to run bee business :-D

that last bit is good advise for anyone going into any type of buisness. In a small and medium sized buisness especially. You don't have the resources of the really big guys and need to be as stingy as possible during the lean times just to make it by. There's a reason most small buisnesses fail. It's not easy.